Generally, this disclosure relates to determining a condition of personal protection (PP) articles. More particularly, it relates to methods and systems for determining a condition of a personal protection equipment (PPE) article, wherein the method and system determine whether the condition of the PPE article satisfies at least one criterion.
Maintaining the safety and health of workers is a major concern across many industries. Various rules and regulations have been developed to aid in addressing this concern, which provide sets of requirements to ensure proper administration of personnel health and safety procedures. To help in maintaining worker safety and health, some individuals may be required to don, wear, carry, or otherwise use a PPE article, if the individuals enter or remain in work environments that have hazardous or potentially hazardous conditions. Known types of PPE articles include, without limitation, respiratory protection equipment (RPE), e.g., for normal condition use or emergency response, protective eyewear, such as visors, goggles, filters or shields, protective headwear, such as hard hats, hoods or helmets, hearing protection, protective shoes, protective gloves, other protective clothing, such as coveralls and aprons, protective articles, such as sensors, safety tools, detectors, global positioning devices, mining cap lamps and any other suitable gear.
For example, personnel in the nuclear industry may be required to wear radiation protective clothing and personal dosimeter devices. Law enforcement personnel are sometimes required to wear protective vests and helmets. There are numerous situations in the medical field in which healthcare workers must wear protective gowns, masks, face shields, gloves, etc. Workers in the food service industry are often required to wear hair netting, gloves, masks, etc. For example, there are also many industrial manufacturing scenarios in which personnel are required to wear protective or other specially designed articles in order to ensure a “clean” environment. For example, personnel in the micro-electronics manufacturing industry, biotech industry, laboratory/testing industry, are required to wear PPE articles not only to ensure their own safety, but to protect the equipment and devices which they assemble or perform various procedures with. There are also many industrial manufacturing scenarios in which personnel working in mines, oil refineries, metal grinding facilities, smelting facilities, industrial painting operations or pharmaceutical factories may be required to wear respiratory protection equipment (RPE).
There are many different kinds of RPE's utilized to prevent or reduce inhalations of contaminants, such as hazardous or toxic materials. The RPE's remove specific air contaminants by passing air through their air-purifying element. Proper use of such RPE's is contingent upon their condition and use being in accordance with appropriate sets of rules, guidelines, regulations, certifications, or the like that govern use in a working environment. The rules, guidelines, regulations, certifications may be numerous and may be promulgated from many sources, including business and/or governmental sources. Many traditional RPE's typically do not, for example, include: any mechanism indicating when their ability to remove air contaminants has been reduced, if the workplace in which they are to be used contains contaminants they cannot handle; or if actual use of an RPE is outside recommended or required exposure times in a workplace. As such, determining if RPE'S are properly functioning and/or if their performances are in accordance with recommended or required rules can be quite demanding and at times quite onerous.
Moreover, facilities in which workers use PPE articles are often required to keep detailed records regarding the articles and the processing of them. For example, records may be kept regarding their use, conditions in which they were used, individuals who used them. In addition, records are kept as to when and whether PPE articles are to be serviced, changed-out, subject to maintenance, decontaminated or otherwise processed. As such, significant efforts and extensive recordkeeping must be undertaken. Clearly, making and keeping extensive records that contain all of the above-referenced information present a substantial administrative task. With more than 500,000 air contaminants that may be present in certain work environments, there are numerous rules and regulations to follow and gather information about. Accordingly, companies using such PPE articles have the responsibility to record their compliance with the appropriate rules and regulations. If not, potentially serious and/or costly consequences may rise.
Moreover, despite the extensive records that are required to be collected, adherence to various predetermined criteria is typically the responsibility of the user. Thus, compliance with a particular criterion regarding the condition of a PPE article may become an issue in work environments involving relatively large numbers of workers and/or respirators because of the relative difficulty in tracking worker habits and diligence, in part, due to the wearer not having means of assessing the level of hazards in his/her environment. Clearly, when predetermined criteria are not adhered to, workers are at a higher risk of exposure upon breakthrough of hazardous materials.
Furthermore, the predetermined criteria regarding proper and safe use of PPE articles are often predicated upon assumed work environment conditions prevailing during actual use, such as the kinds and concentrations of particulate in the workplace. Such assumptions also apply to other factors, such as the absence of other contaminants that might adversely affect proper RPE use. Also, such sets of criteria are predicated upon assumptions that the RPE articles will perform as intended. However, potentially serious and/or costly consequences may rise if the noted assumptions change which lead to violations of such rules and regulations. Moreover, it would be of substantial value to determine at which location(s) the assumptions have changed, thereby allowing corrections to be made to the environment or the articles.
Thus, needs exist for electronic methods and systems that overcome or eliminate the drawbacks and shortcomings of known approaches for determining the conditions of PPE articles against at least one criterion governing their use. Accordingly, there is need for electronic methods and systems that enable the conditions of PPE articles, such as RPE articles, to be determined against at least one criterion that governs their use, let alone in a manner that is highly reliable, efficient, and economical.